Exit Day: Brexit; An Assassin Stalks the Prime Minister

by David Laws

  “No.”

  Later he was to chide her: 678 didn’t have quite the same resonance as 007, he said, but she was impervious to his attempts at humour.

  Harry was in a good mood. Things were looking up. He was in – inside the Intelligence loop – but then he got to asking himself why. He guessed Patronella had others like him on her books – or rather, off her books – and he knew he was exactly the sort of person MI6 would use abroad. But why hadn’t she chosen a professional agent for the home turf? Control, that was it. She thought he’d be a troublemaker if left to his own devices, so she sought to control him. But that was a two-way street, he vowed. He now had better access than any other journo. He was in on the ground floor of this story and would be its ultimate authority when it broke.

  Their next meeting was in the Rover parked some way from a scruffy two-storey building in the Farringdon Road that did not fit with the rest of the modern tower blocks around it. Harry noticed immediately: no visible entrance, no windows on the ground floor, bars at the upper storey.

  “The Fortress,” she announced. “Editorial and print base for their party newspaper. The International group. The ones who still think Joe Stalin was a hero.”

  “You mean the Daily Tribune?”

  “The same.”

  “Always regarded that as a joke.”

  “No joke, Mr Topp, that’s your best way in. You’re a journalist, aren’t you?”

  “They’d never give me the time of day.” Harry shook his head. “You have to be a fully paid-up wrecker to play their game. Spit blood, drip venom, bags of form, marches, demos, battle scars. Hate the system, up the workers, down the boss class, destroy the capitalists, blood on the streets…”

  “You could fake it.”

  Harry laughed. “They’ll have me flagged up. Past bylines, Establishment press, insufficiently radical.”

  “Then we’ll have to make you seem…” She considered, then finished, “Acceptable. There’s a party meeting tonight, open invitation, at eight o’ clock. We’re sure Red Nina will be there.”

  “And she is…?”

  “Look at your list, Mr Topp – she is Kiefer, or pine, the woman who runs the party newspaper. We suspect her of being the minister’s contact but so far we haven’t been able to discover how it works. We want to know how they manage their contact. What is the message system?”

  Harry shrugged, doubtful, but Pat continued, “Kiefer runs the Fortress and all who work in it. Manic about who she lets in. You have to get the nod from her. So after the meeting—”

  “Tell me about this place.”

  “Doesn’t get the nickname for nothing. Only entrance at the back and the door’s a monster, huge wooden thing with loads of bolts; take a bomb to blow it off and we’re not into that.”

  “Thought you weren’t into anything.”

  “That’s why we’ve got you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “They’re paranoid about the security of the printworks. Scared some political opponents will try to stop the paper. No downstairs windows vulnerable to attack, building fortified to withstand petrol bombs, bricks, what have you. She’ll be at the meeting and we want you to seduce her… in a manner of speaking. Charm won’t work, she’s an old boot, so you’ll have to sing the right song.”

  Harry shook his head. “I told you—”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t have to work wonders. We’ll arrange for a little chaos to brighten up the proceedings and then it’s up to you to take your chance. Chaos brings disorder. Chaos is your opportunity.”

  Harry took a deep breath and asked the most important question. “What exactly is it I’m looking for, if, that is, I manage to get in?”

  “Simple. Nose around, find the key. How they operate. Connection to the minister. Anything incriminating, anything provable, how they communicate.”

  Harry did his homework on a clutch of that week’s papers, laughing at the absurdly pejorative excuse for political reporting. Object lessons, he thought, on how not to do it. But then, he admitted to himself, they all did it to some extent, but not quite so blatantly.

  He mugged up on that day’s feast of editorial hysteria, ready to mouth the right platitudes – not as a journo; they all had track records the party zealots would root out – but as a newly convinced member of the public anxious for nirvana.

  When he arrived at the Horse and Groom there were no outward signs of a meeting and he had to ask at the bar. That was his first taste of the strange world he was about to enter.

  “You one of them?” asked the barman with a sneer.

  Harry repressed a denial, swallowed and nodded.

  “Staircase by the gents’, first floor.”

  The room, when he found it, had bare floorboards, plain walls, tables drawn up in a line and a bank of chairs.

  “Good to see a fresh face,” said a tweedy man with jacket and pipe.

  “Never been before,” Harry said, feigning shyness, “but the poster said it all for me. Crushing capitalism, evil of the markets, power to the streets… that’s why I came.”

  He’d expected a parade of beards and sandals, but the straggly collection of people sitting and talking didn’t seem hugely out of place – perhaps a little dowdy, as if they all frequented charity shops out of choice. The meeting was called to order by the chairman, who announced himself as Archibald Sinclair – mid sixties with half-moon specs – and then the speeches began. Harry had been alert and open to the atmosphere at the beginning, but when the speeches became longer his concentration began to flag. The voices droned, the points abstruse, the claims – to him – absurd. His eyes began to flicker, but sleep would hardly help his cause. He remembered then the night he got a sharp dig in the ribs from Erika at the Magic Flute.

  He drew himself up in an effort to concentrate. Would he ever get the chance to approach the woman? He recognised her easily enough from the spook’s description. Unmistakable, sitting on the back table next to Chairman Sinclair: Nina Verona, a hatchet-faced, grizzled greyhead straight out of a Giles cartoon.

  She spoke only once in answer to a question. Her style was like someone on stage at the Old Vic. Full lips, every word enunciated as if it were a briquette of gold, a claw-like splay of hands making dramatic motions.

  Harry’s sense of monotony was broken by the sound, distant at first, of raised voices. This escalated to yells and the stomping of many feet on the stairs, followed by the door to the room being flung open to reveal a huge police sergeant with a blood-red face. His frame filled the doorway, and for a moment he was still, staring in at the company, which had suddenly gone quiet. Then he advanced on the centre of the room and stood in front of Sinclair’s table.

  The chairman also stood. “This is a public meeting, you can’t interrupt our—”

  “We have a warrant,” boomed the sergeant. “To search these premises and all those in it. Now, get to your feet, go to the far wall, hands in the air, face to the wall and no conversing.”

  “This is outrageous, you’ve no right—”

  But the chairman’s protests were soon drowned out by Red Nina. “Just as I would have expected,” she barked, her shout as loud as the sergeant’s. “The fascist pigs have come to close us down.”

  Several people were now on their feet, gesticulating, a chorus of dissent. Shouts of “Police state” and “You’ll answer to the people!”

  A whole squad of police were filing into the room, filling it with blue uniforms and determined expressions. There seemed, to Harry, to be more uniforms than those in ordinary clothing.

  “Up against the wall! That means everybody.”

  Chairman Sinclair had to be prodded. Harry saw a flash of baton. “We shall resist this state interference,” he said.

  Chairs were being scraped back, feet were stamped, arms flapped uselessly in helpless protest. Harry could
sense the impotent rage. This grubby room was the party’s home and hearth. This raid was a desecration of the beating heart of their tiny group. However, the protests were becoming muted. Who was going to argue too vigorously with the overwhelming force on display?

  A small man with an egg-shaped head and plain clothes seemed to be in charge, quietly rummaging among the papers on the now-deserted table. Harry recognised what was happening. Despite her protestations of powerlessness, Patronella had clearly made a connection where it mattered. He could imagine liaison officers scurrying to their telephones, sparking Special Branch into action on the basis of some dubious threat to national security. The sergeant pointed, and Harry did what seemed inevitable and stood against the wall, being patted down none too gently.

  He tried glancing to his side to see if anyone was still playing the rebel.

  “Face to the wall!”

  A voice. “How long do we have to stand here?”

  “Until I’m ready.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Terrorist-related material.”

  “You won’t find any here.”

  “Faces to the wall!”

  There were sounds of chairs being moved, tables examined, files opened, briefcases searched. Finally, the big sergeant had another announcement. “You will each give your particulars to my officer here, who will make a list of names and addresses. Some form of identification will be necessary. You may then leave… except for the chairman, who is to be taken into custody for questioning.”

  “Outrageous!”

  “Name, address, age, occupation, bank card, driving licence—”

  “We refuse. We will not co-operate…”

  “The sooner you comply, the sooner you can go home.”

  “We don’t want to go home, we want to continue our meeting. A perfectly legal and valid meeting.”

  Harry gave his details to a constable who was making heavy weather of his note-taking. After a token protest, he walked downstairs to the bar. He could tell who was who: two of the meeting crowd were already there, spluttering outrage; the rest of those in the bar wore broad grins. Even the cops were popular at the Groom.

  When Red Nina came down the stairs, Harry was quick to make his pitch: “How is it, in the twenty-first century, that you can’t hold a public meeting on a matter of great social importance without a raid by the police? It’s like something out of the last century, or before. I’m astonished. Astounded! Something should be done about it.”

  She stared at him, perhaps assessing him, perhaps making a decision. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  Harry nodded. “New and shocked.” She was still on her guard, and Harry knew something more was required. “This has been such a revelation to me,” he said. “I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  “How did you know about us?” she demanded.

  He gave her his biggest smile. “Read your book!” This was tricky. This needed careful handling. He knew – because he’d been briefed – that her turgid tome was actually out of print. “Found it in the library,” he said, as if he’d just struck gold.

  “Which one?”

  “Hackney.”

  This seemed to satisfy her.

  “And if you’ve got any membership forms handy, I’d be happy to join the party,” he said.

  She drew in a breath, then said, “Would you like to help us write up an account of what’s happened here tonight? For the newspaper? A fresh voice…”

  “Glad to,” Harry said with emphasis.

  That seemed to make up her mind. “We’re not safe here,” she said. “They’ve already got our chair, there may be more arrests; we should move now. Walk with us.”

  It was like being led into the Führerbunker. Scars of old battles were evident on the back wall and an ancient armoured van, looking like a retread from Securicor, was parked in the yard. Through the big door and into a gloomy interior the little group went, and the atmosphere reeked of fear and suspicion. Electric light bulbs had wire-mesh protection, the stairs were rough concrete and the walls were liquid; whether from condensation or a leak Harry could not tell.

  More stairs, unpainted metal cabinets, job-lot desks. Fire buckets with sand or water were placed in corners with brushes for beating out fires. He felt like an air-raid warden in World War II. Paranoia was a hallmark of this place. It was, he thought, like the den of a dodgy dictatorship.

  Nina strode to a young girl, who was swishing a long brunette ponytail. “We’ve just been ambushed at the pub. The pigs have arrested Sinclair.”

  Shock, then the journo instinct. A notebook.

  “This man,” said Nina, pointing at Harry, “is going to give us an eyewitness account, the personal testimony of someone attending one of our meetings for the very first time. To see just what the comrades are up against.”

  The girl’s gaze latched on to Harry, keen, ready to go – but Harry was having none of it. “Actually,” he said, “I’m a little nervous about all this; not sure I should really be speaking out…”

  “You’ll be fine with Freda here.”

  “No.” Harry was now definite. “You invited me. I want to stay with you. I only feel safe with you.”

  Nina looked at him, astonished. A new phenomenon for her. Was this insolence, or flattery? “Very well.”

  He followed her through a plastic door, which flapped noisily like a whoopee cushion, and marked up a small triumph as he found himself where he wanted to be: in Nina’s office, surely the nerve centre of the operation. Keen eyes took in the scene: desk, side tables laden with books, files, papers, filing cabinets and an old coke stove, cold and unlit. A huge radio stood on the back shelf with headphones parked on top.

  “You a fan of The Archers?” he said with a grin, and she gave him the grim lip in return. Then he began dictating his statement of the police raid while wondering how to get rid of her so he could riffle through her desk and cabinets. What file names should he look for? Hardly Tresham, Stasi or EU. Clearly they’d disguise their activities. Perhaps Ministry or Home Office?

  Minutes dragged by as he acted the outraged comrade. He was getting desperate. So far, he hadn’t picked up any useful information and it looked as if he’d have no chance to ransack her office. Perhaps she would be called away for some reason?

  The door opened and a light glimmered in Harry’s head – but briefly. The young girl with the ponytail wanted to know which union protest to put on Page One.

  Clearly, Red Nina was too canny, too aware. She was never going to leave him alone in her room. His account began to falter and he looked up to the ceiling for inspiration, then around the room, and that was when he caught a glimpse of the ashtray. It contained several blackened pieces of paper. She’d clearly been burning something. If the stove had been lit it would have gone on the fire.

  He tried not to show he’d noticed.

  They were getting to the point of exhaustion in his story of political anger at police tactics. If Nina wouldn’t leave the room soon, how could he distract her? He stared at the bars on the window and began to speculate, haltingly at first, about the great battles of the past. She responded by pointing to a visible chip in the brickwork. “May Day ’89” she said, just as he used his right hand to slide the ashtray below the level of the desk, emptying the contents into his left palm. It made a tiny noise as he returned the tray and she looked back from the window. His gaze, however, was still firmly on the skyline outside.

  By now Harry was scraping the barrel. Inane comments and profuse thanks for the privilege of seeing her operation in action. The ashtray, he decided, was the best he was going to get, so he gently eased the charred remnants of her mysterious bonfire into his jacket pocket.

  “What have you got for me?” Patronella wanted to know when they met up later, once more on the Embankment but
this time in her car.

  He said nothing, merely handing over, with a little theatrical flourish, a tiny plastic bag containing the charred remnants.

  She frowned.

  “You people have the technical ways and means,” he said, “to read the message that was there before Red Nina burnt it.”

  “Not at all sure about that,” she said, taking possession of the bag with a shrug. “Anything else?”

  He had the distinct feeling she was disappointed, so he did his best to describe the grim state of the building’s interior and drew a pen picture of Red Nina.

  She cut him short. “I was hoping for more. Something tangible. Something in the hand.”

  “I brought you ashes…”

  “No contact books, papers, codebooks?”

  Harry drew in his breath and tried again, describing Nina’s radio and headphones.

  “That’s how they get the information in and out,” Patronella said, “but not much good to us without transcripts or codebooks.”

  “Don’t you bug their transmissions?”

  “Impenetrable. They’re using some undetectable code that’s beyond our computer programmes. We’ve tried their old favourites – family birthdates, even Honecker’s, the whole damned politburo – but their code people have moved on.”

  “A birthday code?”

  “That’s what did for Gunter Guillaume.”

  “Who?”

  “The top Stasi spy assigned to the West German Chancellor. Surely you remember? Willy Brandt?”

  There was a silence between them, then she said, “We’ll have to get you back in there.”

  Harry was beginning to rebel at the presumption of his continued co-operation, and shook his head.

  “Or tail Nina until we find her contact,” Patronella said. “Could you do that?”

  Harry looked at her directly. “Maybe. But first, how about you help me? If I’m going to be your freelance footpad, I need something in return. Like a full background briefing.”

  “You’ll get your reward,” she said quickly, “when the story breaks…”